To cure HIV, attack the reservoir

Chronic infectious diseases like HIV survive by forming reservoirs. These small populations of a bacterium or virus persist despite attacks from the immune system or drug treatment.

While these reservoirs are not always well understood, researchers believe they have begun to decode how a reservoir of infection can persist in HIV-positive populations. They propose that a type of HIV infection that uses infected cells to get close to uninfected cells and then discharge a large load of virus on them, may be the reason small populations of HIV-infected cells hang in even when antiretroviral drug treatment has been successful in suppressing most other infections.